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Single Idea 21537

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism ]

Full Idea

I prefer to advocate ...that the object of a presentation is the actual external object itself, and not any part of the presentation at all.

Gist of Idea

I assume we perceive the actual objects, and not their 'presentations'

Source

Bertrand Russell (Meinong on Complexes and Assumptions [1904], p.33)

Book Ref

Russell,Bertrand: 'Essays in Analysis', ed/tr. Lackey,Douglas [George Braziller 1973], p.33

A Reaction

Although I am a fan of the robust realism usually favoured by Russell, I think he is wrong. I take Russell to be frightened that once you take perception to be of 'presentations' rather than things, there is a slippery slope to anti-realism. Not so.

Related Idea

Idea 21536 When I perceive a melody, I do not perceive the notes as existing [Russell]

The 16 ideas with the same theme [we are in direct contact with reality]:

21337 A knowing being possesses a further reality, the 'presence' of the thing known [Aquinas]
22130 Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
3943 If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley]
23662 The existence of ideas is no more obvious than the existence of external objects [Reid]
14866 It always remains possible that the world just is the way it appears [Nietzsche]
21537 I assume we perceive the actual objects, and not their 'presentations' [Russell]
5377 'Acquaintance' is direct awareness, without inferences or judgements [Russell]
22160 Our relationship to a hammer strengthens when we use [Heidegger]
5678 Scientific direct realism says we know some properties of objects directly [Dancy,J]
5681 Maybe we are forced from direct into indirect realism by the need to explain perceptual error [Dancy,J]
6549 I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan]
6355 Direct realism says justification is partly a function of pure perceptual states, not of beliefs [Pollock/Cruz]
6643 'Ecological' approaches say we don't infer information, but pick it up directly from reality [Lowe]
19526 Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances? [Williamson]
16374 There is a continuum from acquaintance to description in knowledge, depending on the link [Recanati]
8417 Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway]